Materials Science and Engineering, 68 (1984) 11-18 11

Hysteresis Energy of Cyclic Loading

V. KLIMAN and M. BILY

Institute of Materials and Machine Mechanics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava (Czechoslovakia)
(Received April 24, 1984; in revised form July 24, 1984)

ABSTRACT energy o f a spectrum o f blocks o f harmonic

In this paper the effect o f loading history
on the deformation response o f a low carbon
steel is examined and some results on the de-
termination o f the shape and area o f stabi-
lized hysteresis loops obtained under cyclic
loading are presented. The hysteresis energy
A W (as represented by the hysteresis loop
area) can be determined from
A W = 4 1 - - ~ n,
(o a is the stress amplitude, n' = f(Oa) and n
and k are parameters the values o f which are
available in the literature) or on substitution
of
0 a ~-- ~Cap n
(eap is the plastic deformation amplitude)
from
1--n'
AW = 4 , ke~p "+1
l+n
Alternatively, if the averaged value o f the ex-
p o n e n t n' is assumed to be O. 15, then the
hysteresis area can be found from
cycles, representing service loading, obtained
by a counting m e t h o d from a random process.
1. INTRODUCTION
A cyclically loaded material absorbs a cer-
tain a m o u n t of energy AW in every cycle,
which is usually characterized by a hysteresis
loop area (Fig. 1). Numerous experiments
have proved that the accumulation of fatigue
damage is clearly governed by the plastic de-
formation amplitude eap and so it is natural to
look for the correlation between the value of
the hysteresis energy (or the cyclic plastic
strain energy) and the value of the load ampli-
tude. This is a rather important practical
problem because this energy seems to be a
convenient measure of the accumulated
fatigue damage [2].
The determination of the cyclic plastic
strain energy absorbed in a certain material
Y

AW = 3 --~-

or
(Oal+n)lln

AW = 3keap n+l
J
Experiments have proved that these equations
give sufficiently accurate results, that n' does
not depend on the frequency o f loading (up
to 15 Hz) and that the hysteresis loop (cyclic
plastic strain) energy can be expressed as a
linear function o f the stress amplitude o~ or
plastic strain amplitude eap (on a double- Fig. 1. Hysteresis loop and coordinate system for the
logarithmic scale). Using these results it is calculation of the hysteresis loop area according to
possible to quantify the cyclic plastic strain Morrow [ 1].

0025-5416/84]$3.00 ~) Elsevier Sequoia/Printed in The Netherlands

12
volume during repeated loading (i.e. the
amount of accumulated loop areas) is not
simple. It m a y be measured directly but re-
quires rather sophisticated equipment, es-
pecially when random loading is involved (e.g.
a computer-controlled system with suitable
software). This is w h y for the hysteresis
energy application and practical estimation of
the fatigue life it is more convenient to deter-
mine this energy b y calculation. The aim of
this paper is therefore to propose suitable
relations for the theoretical estimation of the
hysteresis energy value based on the material
and loading parameters characterizing the
cyclic loads, to verify experimentally their
applicability and also to estimate the influ-
ence of some environmental (service) factors
on the a m o u n t of hysteresis energy.
2. BASIC R E L A T I O N S F O R T H E H Y S T E R E S I S
ENERGY CALCULATION
For an estimation of the hysteresis energy
the area of the hysteresis loop, which charac-
terizes the energy corresponding to one load-
ing cycle, can be used. In order to determine
the value AW of this energy, Morrow [1] as-
sumed a power law relationship b e t w e e n
stress and strain and derived that
t
1--n
AW = 4 1 + n" o~e~p
where oa is the stress amplitude, eap is the
plastic deformation amplitude and n' is the
exponent determining the w a y in which the
hysteresis loop depends on the stress ampli-
tude, i.e. n' f(Oa).
=
Because fatigue life estimation should in-
corporate the various loading process param-
ters (such as the loading mode (stress or strain
cycling), the mean value, the frequency (the
velocity of loading)) as well as the material
parameters, it is appropriate to determine the
hysteresis loop area by means of the param-
eters that describe the cyclic stress-strain
curve (CSSC).
The plastic portion of the CSSC is generally
defined as the relation between the stabilized
stress o~ and the plastic strain amplitude e~p
in the form
Ha : k6ap n
The values of the parameters k and n are avail-
able for most engineering materials in refer-
ence books (see for example ref. 3) or can be
readily obtained for a given specimen by a
quick method [4].
Combining eqns. (1) and (2) gives
1-- n' (Oal+n]:lln
AW = 4 , \~- (3a)
l+n
1--n'
AW = 4 - - , k•ap n+l (3b)
l+n
where k and n correspond to the CSSC of a
given loading process. This is a rather im-
portant point because the CSSC shape m a y
depend on the loading parameters [5] and on
the method employed to determine these
parameters [6] as well as on the loading
history [7, 8].
Because it is not easy to obtain the rela-
tionship n' = f(Oa) experimentally for the
range of stress amplitudes most widely used in
fatigue applications, we shall assume at this
stage that the average value of n' is about 0.15
[9]. This assumption simplifies eqn. (3), and
therefore
(9al+nll n
AW = 3 ~ - / (4a)
or
AW = 3keap n+l (4b)
Another important piece of information
(1)
which can be used as the fatigue damage
criterion is the energy W~ to fracture. Its value
depends on the load amplitude (W~ increases
as the load amplitude decreases [10]) and can
be estimated approximately if it is assumed
that most steels exhibit a short saturation
period (stabilization) of their cyclic mechani-
cal properties. In other words, AW is constant
over a substantial part of the fatigue life or
W~ = AW Nf (5)
where N~ is the number of cycles to fracture
obtained from the corresponding S-N
(WShler) curve or Manson-Coffin curve.
These parameters are also usually available
(see for example ref. 3).
The situation changes slightly when vari-
able (service and environmental) loading,
which is generally of a stochastic character, is
considered. For this case we use information
(2) a b o u t the accumulation of hysteresis energy
 13

and the corresponding damage caused by one
typical variable-load unit which may be deter-
mined, for example, from a spectrum of
blocks of various harmonic amplitudes ob-
tained by a counting m e t h o d (usually by the
"rain f l o w " m e t h o d [7]). If the hysteresis
energy of a block spectrum is denoted as Wbb
then it can be found as a sum of the energies
absorbed from individual amplitudes, i.e.
Wbl= ~a lAW i (6)
i 4. E X P E R I M E N T A L R E S U L T S A N D D I S C U S S I O N
plastic deformation amplitude and the total
deformation amplitude were then recorded.
In addition, the cyclic load and deformation
were also monitored with an oscillograph and
the stabilized hysteresis loop for each load
amplitude was photographed. The applied
frequencies in the cyclic tests were 1, 5, 8, 10
and 15 Hz.

where ai is the number of amplitudes at the From an analysis of the photographed

ith load level. hysteresis loops the following results were
obtained.

3. E X P E R I M E N T S 4.1. Relationship between stress o and plastic

deformation ep in a stabilized hysteresis loop
The aim of the experimental programme The results obtained are plotted in Fig. 2.
that we designed was (1) to verify the assump- It is obvious that on a double-logarithmic
tions used in the derivation of eqn. (1) (es-
pecially the power law relationship between
the stress and the strain in the hysteresis
loop), (2) to estimate the value of the expo-
nent n' and its dependence on the load ampli-
tude, (3) to check whether the hysteresis loop b 700

area AW is frequency independent (for a given

60O
load amplitude) and, if so, to confirm that n'
would change with the rate of loading because
5oo i __ h
the CSSC shape does not depend on fre- ~o-3 ,o-2
quency up to 1 0 - 1 5 Hz [5], (4) to compare (a) [p

the experimental AW values with the AW

values calculated from eqn. (3) based on the 700
CSSC, (5) to assess the possibility of using the
600
simplified equations (4) or in other words to
determine the influence of n' = f(Oa) on the
accumulated energy value and (6) to compare 500

the harmonic block spectrum energy value

b
determined from eqn. (6) with the true z.OC
energy obtained experimentally for various
arrangements of blocks or harmonic cycles
(various loading histories). 30C
The experiments were carried o u t with a
computer-controlled MTS system using 25£
cylindrical low carbon steel specimens (yield
stress, 320 MPa; ultimate tensile strength, (b ) 10.4 10-3 ~p
620 MPa; carbon content, 0.4 wt.%) loaded
in a strain-controlled symmetric tension- Fig. 2. E x p e r i m e n t a l l y d e t e r m i n e d r e l a t i o n s h i p (re-
compression mode. For the CSSC determina- gression line) b e t w e e n stress a n d plastic d e f o r m a t i o n
tion the stepwise one-specimen m e t h o d was in a h y s t e r e s i s l o o p (for t h e s y s t e m origin l o c a t e d at
adopted, in which each amplitude level was O' in Fig. 1): (a) in t h e l o w cycle fatigue r a n g e ( % =
4 2 2 MPa, n' = 0 . 1 3 7 a n d r 2 = 0 . 9 3 3 ) ; (b) in t h e h i g h
applied up to the stabilization of the me- cycle fatigue r a n g e (line 1, o a - 269 MPa, n ' - 0 . 3 1 3
chanical properties of the material. The a n d r 2 = 0 . 9 6 0 ; line 2, o a -- 358 MPa, n r = 0 . 2 6 8 a n d
stabilized values of the load amplitude, the r2 = 0.995).
14
scale they m a y be approximated by linear
lines with very good correlation coefficients.
This agreement is slightly better for higher
amplitudes (Fig. 2(a)) than for lower ampli-
tudes (Fig. 2(b), line 1, for which oa corre-
sponds to a stress amplitude about 30 MPa
above the fatigue limit), but in all cases the
linear representation is satisfactory. Thus it
can be concluded that the proposed relation-
i
ship aa = constant × ep" between stress and
plastic deformation is correct and adequately
describes the hysteresis loop shape. This also
agrees with the results published in ref. 11.
4.2. Value o f the exponent n'
The results in Fig. 2 show that the slope of
the lines which correspond to n' changes with
variation in stress amplitude. This is also
obvious from Fig. 3.
It should be mentioned, however, that the
n' values exhibit a rather wide scatter, es-
pecially in the range of amplitudes between
high and low cycle fatigue. For this reason the
curve shown has been taken from a large
number of results averaged for various fre-
quencies, each point corresponding to a given
range of the stress amplitudes. From Fig. 3
it is evident that the widely accepted n' value
of 0.15 is more appropriate for higher stress
amplitudes (low cycle fatigue), whereas for
lower stress amplitudes the value of n' is
higher. It seems therefore that a better esti-
mation of n' for both fatigue ranges should be
about 0.2.
500
450
,?.
350
300
2501
200
o.~ 0:2 0'.3 o, 0.4
Fig. 3. Changes in the hysteresis loop exponent n'
with the stress amplitude o a.
4.3. Relationship between the stress ampli-
tude and the hysteresis loop (cyclic plastic
strain) energy
Figure 4 shows the relationship between
the hysteresis loop energy A W in 1 cycle and
the stress amplitude oa obtained for an ap-
plied frequency of 1, 5, 8, 10 and 15 Hz and
stress-controlled loading. From the experi-
mental points it is clear that on a double-
logarithmic scale this relationship can also be
approximated by a straight line. For example,
for a frequency of 1 Hz, oa = 328(AW) °'°s9
(correlation coefficient r 2 = 0.966) is ob-
tained whereas, over all the frequencies used,
the c o m m o n equation is Oa = 321(AW) °'°96
(r 2 = 0.902).
When similar experiments were carried out
in strain cycling, the result obtained was
qualitatively the same: the relationship be-
tween the plastic strain amplitude eap and the
hysteresis loop energy AW in 1 cycle is also
linear (on a double-logarithmic scale) but the
scatter is smaller (Fig. 5). For a frequency of
1 Hz, therefore e~p = 1.11× 10-3(A W)°'71s
(r 2 = 0.988) and, for all the points taken as
one set, eap= 1.12 X 10-a(A W)0''/23 (r 2 =
0.954).
From these results it can consequently be
concluded that the hysteresis loop energy A W
in 1 cycle is not frequency dependent up to
15 Hz. This is also true for the exponent n' of
the loop. Nevertheless, care should be taken
when applying stress-controlled high stress
amplitudes, where cyclic creep can occur. In
such cases the rate of loading may obviously
influence AW.
It should be emphasized, however, that our
concept of the hysteresis loop shapes is valid
only in the crack initiation stage or at best
until the m o m e n t when the propagating
fatigue crack substantially reduces the cross
section of a specimen tested. If, in contrast,
the crack becomes very long, the tensile half-
cycle occurs over a smaller cross section and
consequently the stress amplitude in the
strain-controlled cycling decreases (Fig. 6).
During the compressive half-cycle the crack
is closed and so the cross section hardly
changes; the compressive peak value is there-
fore approximately constant.
For stress-controlled cycling, deformations
during the tensile half-cycles increase because
of the stress increase over the remaining cross
section. In compressive half-cycles the situa-
 15

"S V

V V
350

300
X

250

200
I !
o.01 o.1 1.o AW(MPa) 10
Fig. 4. Experimentally determined relationship between the stress amplitude oa and the hysteresis loop energy
AW in 1 cycle for various loading frequencies: o, 1 Hz; v, 5 Hz; o, 8 Hz; x, 10 Hz; v, 15 Hz.

5,10-3

1,10-3

"o
5x10-4 ~ o "

Y o

o'.1 o:3 11o ; ; lO

AW (r,4Pe)
Fig. 5. Experimentally determined relationship between the plastic deformation amplitude (~ap and the hysteresis
loop energy AW in 1 cycle for various loading frequencies: o, 1 Hz; T, 5 Hz; o, 8 Hz; x, 10 Hz; v, 15 Hz.

tion again does n o t change because of the
crack closure.
4.4. Comparison of the calculated and experi-
mental values o f the absorbed energy
Figures 7 and 8 show the experimentally
d e t e r m i n e d and calculated values of the
hysteresis energy A W in 1 cycle for various
stress and plastic strain amplitudes. T h e calcu-
lated AW values were obt ai ned f r o m the
CSSC parameters using eqns. (3) and (4) and
f r o m the CSSC o f the material in t h e f o r m
oa = 761ea °'117 (for strain control [4]) to-
gether with the experimentally det erm i ned
relationship o~ = f(n') f r o m Fig. 3.
T he agreement b e t w e e n the experimental
and theoretical points is satisfactory although
b e t t e r results were obtained for strain-con-
trolled cycling (Fig. 8). Moreover, t here is
obviously not m u c h difference bet w een eqns.
(3) and (4), corresponding t o the strain lines
1 and 2. T he theoretical curve 2 in Fig. 7
based on the a p p r o x i m a t e equation (4a) gives
an even bet t er correlation with the experi-
16

mental points than does the more accurate
curve expressed b y eqn. (3a). This suggests
that the variation in the exponent n', or in
other words the experimental dependence
oa = f(n'), is n o t very crucial; therefore, for
an estimation of the energy absorbed A W in
1 cycle, eqn. (4) can be adopted.
4.5. Hysteresis loop (cyclic plastic strain)
energy o f a block spectrum with various load-
ing histories
Because the fatigue life is often influenced
b y the loading history, it is reasonable to
O"
£
,1
,2
j The theoretical (predicted) curve e in Fig.
p" j"
I
Fig. 6. Evolution of the hysteresis loop shape due to
cyclic loading: curve 1, stabilized hysteresis loop of
a crack-free specimen: curves 2-6, hysteresis loops of
a specimen with a propagating fatigue crack.
assume that the cyclic plastic strain of a block
spectrum is also influenced in a similar way.
This fact is experimentally verified in Fig. 9
for four different block spectra (three of
these spectra are composed of blocks of
harmonic cycles and one spectrum represents
a set of individual cycles, the number of
cycles being the same in all cases, however). It
can be seen that the largest energy and conse-
quently the most advanced fatigue damage
belongs to randomly distributed cycles except
at the highest applied load levels for which
cyclic creep occurs.
This result suggests that for the most reli-
able laboratory verification of the service
fatigue life based on a block spectrum (ob-
tained by a counting method) a randomly
distributed sequence of cycles should be used.
Such a block spectrum is probably the most
extreme representation of a service load [1],
yielding the most severe damage compared
with other loading histories. Moreover, such
a random arrangement of individual cycles is
probably the closest approximation to the
original random process.
9 corresponds to eqn. (6) which does not take
into account the stress cycle sequence. It fol-
lows the trend of curve d for the random
sequence of cycles and agrees with it moder-
ately well, especially in the high cycle fatigue
range. So eqn. (6) could be used to estimate
the cyclic plastic strain energy of a typical

b~
350 xT
}( o

300

250

"" "" / • X
• 2
200 <]
I I
0.01 0.1 1.0 10
AW (MI~)
Fig. 7. Relationship between the calculated and experimentally determined values of the hysteresis loop energy
AWin 1 cycle and the stress amplitude o a for various loading frequencies: 0, 1 Hz;T, 5 Hz; o, 8 Hz; ×, 10 Hz;
V, 15 Hz; line 1 , - - , obtained from eqn. (3a); line 2, - - - , obtained from eqn. (4a).
 17

5,io-s

1×10-3

5x~0-4

1x10-4 ~ __ , __ i
o.ol o.1 -- o'.6-4.0 6 lo
AW (MPo)
Fig. 8. Relationship between the calculated and experimental values of hysteresis loop energy AW in 1 cycle and
the plastic deformation strain amplitude 6ap for various loading frequencies: $, 1 Hz; A, 5 Hz; o, 8 Hz; x, 10 Hz;
A, 15 Hz; line 1, - - , obtained from eqn. (3b); line 2, - - -, obtained from eqn. (4b).

280 113 cyctes 113 cycles 113 cyCtes

2
260

240 113 cycles

P
220

200

180
I I I 1 I

20 50 100 200 500 1000

W b ~ (MPa)

Fig. 9. Comparison of the calculated cyclic plastic strain energy Wbl of a block spectrum according to eqn. (6)
with the experimentally determined energies for four differently arranged block spectra a-d as a function of the
standard deviation s a i n each block: curve e, ~ - , calculated Wbl (eqn. (6)); curve a, - - O - , experimental block
spectrum a; curve b, ~ , experimental block spectrum b; curve c, --" A .--, experimental block spectrum c;
curve d, X , experimental block spectrum d.

service r a n d o m u n i t . H o w e v e r , it s h o u l d b e t u d e s i n a b l o c k s p e c t r u m . I n o u r case t h e
understood that the differences between the block spectrum contained 113 amplitudes
e n e r g i e s g i v e n b y t h e c u r v e s s h o w n i n Fig. 9 with the corresponding amplitude distribu-
might depend on the distribution of ampli- t i o n p l o t t e d i n Fig. 10.
18
J
o 16
&l
C3r
12
284 332 38O 428 476
%CMPQ)
Fig. 10. Distribution of 113 stress amplitudes in the
randomly arranged block spectrum e in Fig. 9.
5. CONCLUSIONS
(1) A n e s t i m a t i o n o f t h e e n e r g y AW ab-
s o r b e d in 1 cycle f r o m eqn. (3). is s a t i s f a c t o r y
a n d so t h e c o r r e s p o n d i n g r e l a t i o n s h i p c a n be
used f o r f a t i g u e life p r e d i c t i o n .
(2) T h e r e is n o n e e d t o a s s u m e t h a t t h e ex-
p o n e n t n ' varies w i t h t h e a p p l i e d stress ampli-
t u d e w h e n t h e fatigue life is t o be c a l c u l a t e d
( t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p is n o t v e r y sensitive t o t h e
e x p o n e n t value) a n d so t h e simplified e q u a -
t i o n s (4) can b e used.
(3) I t can be a s s u m e d t h a t t h e a m o u n t o f
e n e r g y A W a b s o r b e d in I c y c l e is n o t in-
f l u e n c e d b y t h e f r e q u e n c y o f loading u p t o 15
Hz; t h e e s t i m a t i o n o f &W b y m e a n s o f t h e
CSSC enables t h e loading p r o c e s s p a r a m e t e r s
t o be i n s e r t e d .
(4) E q u a t i o n (6) can be used t o e s t i m a t e
t h e cyclic plastic strain e n e r g y o f a t y p i c a l
service u n i t w i t h a r a n d o m loading c h a r a c t e r .
(5) T h u s , if possible, t h e l a b o r a t o r y verifi-
c a t i o n o f service fatigue life s h o u l d be b a s e d
o n a r a n d o m s e q u e n c e o f a m p l i t u d e s in a
b l o c k s p e c t r u m o f h a r m o n i c cycles ( p r o v i d e d
t h a t a r a n d o m p r o c e s s is n o t used).
REFERENCES
1 J. D. Morrow, ASTMSpec. Tech. Publ. 378,
1964, p. 45.
2 P. Kurath, H. Sehitoglu, J. D. Morrow and T. J.
Deves, The effect of selected subcycle sequences
in fatigue loading history. In Y. S. Shin and
M. K. Au-Yang (eds.), Random Fatigue Life Pre-
diction, Vol. 72, Pressure Vessels and Piping
Division, American Society of Mechanical En-
gineers, New York, 1983, pp. 43-60.
3 R. W. Landgraf, M. R. Mitchel and N. R.
LaPointe, Monotonic and Cyclic Properties of
Engineering Materials, Ford Data Handbook,
Ford, Detroit, MI, 1972.
4 J. Pol~k, Kovov~ Mater., 13 (1975) 638 (in
Czech).
5 V. Kliman and M. B~l:~, Mater. Sci. Eng., 44
(1980) 73.
6 R. W. Landgraf, J. D. Morrow and T. Endo, J.
Mater., 4 (1969) 176.
7 N. E. Dowling, J. Mater., 7 (1972) 71.
8 K. Koibuchi and S. Kotani, Bull. JSME, 10
(1967) 601.
9 M. Klesnil and P. Luke,, Fatigue of Metallic
Materials, Academia, Prague, 1980.
10 G. R. Halford, J. Mater., 1 (1966) 3.
11 P. L u k ~ and M. Klesnil, Mater. Sci. Eng., 37
(1975) 340.